CHARLOTTE — In the places where grief lingers, where help often arrives too late, one mother is choosing action over silence as she’s on the front lines of Charlotte’s overdose crisis.
Tucked away and unassuming just off of Beatties Ford Road sits an office that many have come to know as a refuge. Channel 9’s Hunter Sáenz saw a line out the door at the Hajee House, all waiting to be welcomed into its harm reduction program.
Terica Carter isn’t a household name, but she’s known to many around here as a savior. Twice a week, her team welcomes in dozens of people -- most of them are experiencing homelessness, and most are drug users or know someone who is.
Inside the Hajee House, there’s no judgement. Everyone is offered a hot meal; on this day, it was chili and rice or chicken and a biscuit.
“Y’all also welcome to get you some more socks and gloves,” Carter says.
They can also choose from donated clothing, and each person receives a brown bag filled with hygiene items.
Most importantly, they’re also given four doses of nalaxone, or Narcan, a medicine that can save people’s lives after an overdose of fentanyl or other opioids.
“No other program around here is giving this out, man,” said Louis, one of the patrons we met who has seen the impact of fentanyl on the Beatties Ford corridor. “We’ve lost so many people in the community; it’s a shame.”
Louis knows firsthand the importance of getting the life-saving drug onto Charlotte’s streets.
“I had a guy who ... he was passed away, he was gone! And just because I had Narcan from them, I was able to help him,” Louis said. “I sprayed the Narcan in his nose and brought him back.”
Carter has put everything she has into this operation.
“We’re trying our best, you know? It was time; we was operating on love,” Carter told Sáenz.
It’s a love built from despair.
“I get a little choked up on that situation ... that’s why I hate going to that part, you know, it hurts,” Carter said.
In 2018, her son Tajahan Carter, was celebrating Father’s Day. Carter says he took what he thought was Percocet, not knowing it was laced with fentanyl. He died from an overdose, and no one around him knew what to do.
“We didn’t know what fentanyl was,” Carter said.
Full of despair and embarrassment, Carter attended an overdose seminar at a local church.
“It was only me and one other Black family at this place. It was hundreds of other people,” Carter said.
“Hundreds of white people?” Sáenz asked.
“Yes, that were already aware of this situation that was coming. I could not believe it, and I knew that my family, my friends, the schools -- we did not know,” Carter said.
So she used her son’s nickname, Hajee, to launch the organization. Hajee House is the first Black-led harm reduction organization in Mecklenburg County.
Black people in the Charlotte area have been dying at an alarming rate. According to the most recent data from Mecklenburg County, there’s been a 200% rise in overdose deaths among Black and brown residents in the county since 2019. More than 55% of non-deadly overdoses have happened in the Black and brown populations.
“That’s what pushes me the most, because I was a mom and I didn’t know, and if I knew that my son needed Narcan or was doing drugs that needed Narcan, I would have them, no lie,” Carter said.
Dr. Logan Adams is an addiction medicine physician, and at least once a week, he’s here working right alongside Carter.
“What is critical is that we have overdose reversal agents out in the community, free and available in the hands of the people that need it the most, that are in active use. And that’s the work that’s being done here at Hajee House,” Adams said.
People at Hajee House are also connected with other wraparound services, like longtime addiction help, and permanent housing. But for Carter, these bags are her reason.
“This is the first step,” Carter said.
A first step that brings us back to Louis, who has already proved the same community hit hardest by this crisis can also be the one that stops it.
“As long as we can come and get some of these things that’s offered out to us, we can help save lives, too,” Louis said.
Hitting the streets to meet the need
Carter’s team also goes where many won’t, combing the streets of Charlotte to meet those in need right where they are.
Crates of those brown paper bags with Narcan were loaded into the back of a car and driven out by Brendan Coale, part of the Hajee House street team. Coale headed out to Sugar Creek Road, an area that even longtime residents will tell you is a corridor that has been left behind, and isn’t always the safest.
“It can get a little dangerous, but we make sure we operate with love,” Carter said.
For Coale, this outreach is personal.
“I’ve had my own struggles with substance use and just as well as people I’ve known all my life and I just think in general we can be doing a lot better for people that use drugs out there,” Coale told Sáenz.
It’s a belief that’s shared by Carter.
“So we have been hitting Sugar Creek, Brookshire [Boulevard] and Freedom [Drive] right now ... we’re just hitting hard, making sure, trying to get everybody aware, and just really being up front in person,” Carter said.
They set up outside of a motel, luring those in need with lunch.
“We all love to eat, right?” Carter said.
But it’s what’s inside the brown bags that really matters. Once word gets up the hill, they come by the dozens, knowing these saviors are there to help.
“If you tell them if they come down, I will personally walk up and meet them,” said one Hajee House worker.
“Education awareness, that’s the main thing. If they could get educated on this, they could spread the word. We can’t tell everybody to stop doing drugs, that’s a whole other war to fight, but we can just say be safe, and if you could prevent an overdose, do so.”
Sáenz asked Carter if she’s enabling them to continue their drug use.
“We’re judge-free, I can’t judge you, but I’m here for you when you want to get clean. We have recovery service, we work with a team of McLeod Center that you come and tell me you’re ready, I can get you right in,” Carter said.
Some of the people we see at Hajee House aren’t warm and fuzzy people, to the average person. Sáenz asked why Carter turns toward the people who a lot of society turns away from.
“Because I feel a sense of shared experience, I must say, I feel like they need to be reached, and all of them are still people,” Carter said.
“When you see people out here just like today what’s going through your mind when they’re getting some of the help -- what do you see when you see them?” Sáenz asked.
“That I know that it’s small, what I’m doing is not enough, that we need more people, that they need the help, we need way more supplies,” Carter said.
She says she wants to take this work to more streets and neighborhoods that are often written off.
“I want to expand, I want to go to other counties, it just drives me,” Carter said.
It’s a drive that her team will keep making with those brown bags, proof that sometimes saving lives starts by simply showing up.
If you would like to help or volunteer your time with Hajee House, you can find all of the information by clicking or tapping this link.
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